When shipping a carton or other package to a recipient, it is often advantageous for the shipper to provide both a packing slip and a shipping label which can be applied to and accessed from the outside of the carton. In one commonly used approach, a packing slip is placed between the shipping label and an outside surface of the carton in such a manner that the packing slip is not visible or accessible from outside the package without tearing away a portion of the shipping label. Through the years a number of approaches have been utilized for providing such packing slip and label arrangements.
In one prior approach, shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,186,554; 6,213,518; and RE 39,100 E, to Raming, a Duplex Carton Label/Packing List Arrangement is disclosed which utilizes duplex printers to apply printing to both sides of a form simultaneously. The need for a duplex printer and applying printing on both sides of the forms makes this approach more cumbersome and expensive than is desirable.
Another approach is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,616,189 B2, to Raming, for a Sequentially Placed Shipping and Packing Label System. In this approach, a packing list is applied at a first station onto a carton. A shipping label is then applied at a second station over the top of the packing list and in registry over and in surrounding relationships to the packing list. When an optional return label is used the packing list is applied over and in surrounding relationship to the return label, with each being adhered to the carton. With this arrangement, the return label, packing list, and shipping label are of different sizes increasing sequentially outward from the surface of the carton with the shipping label being the largest and the return label being the smallest. This approach suffers from several drawbacks. First, the necessity for having three different sizes of labels substantially complicates the application process and increases costs. In similar fashion, the need for sequentially applying the labels at separate stations requires a doubling or tripling of the equipment necessary to apply labels to a single carton, which increases the complexity and cost of such a system to a point that it is not practical for installation and use by many shippers.
It is also often desirable to provide a packing list having a size that is larger than a typical shipping label. For example, it is desirable to have packing lists be printed on an 8½″ by 11″ piece of paper. None of the labeling systems described above are amenable to use with larger size packing slips. In the past, it has been necessary to place such larger size packing slips inside of the carton, prior to closing the carton, or to manually insert the folded packing list into a pouch attached to an outside surface of the carton. placing the packing list inside of the carton makes verification of the items on the packing list difficult at the time the shipping label is subsequently applied. Approaches involving a plastic or paper pouch attached to the side of a carton, with the packing list being subsequently inserted into the pouch as a second step in the process of packing and preparing the carton for shipping, are labor intensive and undesirable as also adding additional cost. In addition, where a packing list must be folded prior to inserting it into a pouch the cost is increased even further.
What is needed, therefore, is an improved method and apparatus for applying shipping labels and packing slips, folded or otherwise, onto a carton or other substrate.